Champions League final: France blames Liverpool fans for its own ineptitude

No, Monsieur Darmanin, the blame for the turmoil at the Champions League final in Paris does not lie with the Liverpool fans. It lies with you and your unruly, ill-prepared police force.

No sooner had the game between Liverpool and Real Madrid concluded on Saturday night, with defeat for the English club by one goal to nil, than Gérald Darmanin, the French interior minister, unburdened himself on the cause of the chaos and the response of his officers. 

“Thousands of British ‘supporters’ without tickets or with forged tickets forced their way through the gates and, at times, assaulted the stewards,” he tweeted. “Thanks are due to the numerous officers who mobilised this evening in this difficult context.” 

I wasn’t there. I only learned of the situation at the Stade de France from television reports. But some facts have to be put out there before they are submerged in myth. 

The first is that there was no trouble with Spanish fans, who were treated with civility throughout by both the organisers of the game and the police. They turned up and were routinely admitted through a broad range of turnstiles on their side of the ground. None of the Real fans, apparently, held counterfeit tickets. They were not subject to attacks by local gangs seeking to steal their wallets. The police saw to that. All this despite the fact that violence and racism are now endemic in the Spanish, not the English, game. 

On the other side of the stadium, meanwhile, Liverpool supporters were being herded into just two lines that filed between brick walls and rows of police vans. Most of the turnstiles that should have admitted English fans were shut. And as well-organised French gang members jostled with the Merseysiders, stealing their tickets and robbing them of cash and valuables, French police officers engulfed the fans in tear gas and pepper spray. 

Among those affected by the violence and the authorities’ response were children and pensioners, scores of whom had to be treated for the effects of gas inhalation. 

By common consent, the Liverpool fans did not engage in violent behaviour. There were shouted protests and, as kick-off loomed, a few younger fans did try to gain entry to the ground by climbing over high fences. But there were no serious incidents. No police officers or match stewards were injured. And of the 105 arrests made, most were of gang members, some French, others made up of what Paris police would describe as the usual suspects. 

Now listen to what the French sports minister had to say. According to Amélie Oudea-Castera, a former tennis professional, appointed to the job just five days before, Real Madrid had ensured that its fans behaved appropriately, while “Liverpool left its supporters on the loose”.

What does this mean? How could Liverpool have kept its supporters on a leash? What were they supposed to do? It’s not as if they had advised them to buy tickets from scalpers (freely at work across central Paris in the build-up to the game). It’s not as though they had suggested they get drunk and break their way into the stadium. On the contrary, the advice from Anfield was that they should behave themselves and act as ambassadors for the English game – advice that was overwhelmingly heeded. Drink was not a factor on Saturday night. Nor was crowd violence. Ninety per cent of the bad behaviour evident throughout was on the part of the police and local gangs.  

But Mme Oudea-Castera wasn’t done. As many as 40,000 fake tickets had been bought by the English, she said, which meant that every single ticket had to be inspected and checked against the point of issue.

This may or may not be true. But how, on the day, could she possibly have known, and why was the same claim not applied to the Spanish fans, whose tickets were accepted without demur? 

Speaking to RTL television, the minister did admit that not all of the blame for what happened could be laid at the feet of Liverpool Football Club. “The most regrettable aspect” of what took place, she said, was that tear gas had been used against families and children who came to watch the final. 

Well, quite. She might have added that the sight of French officers walking up and down the line of English supporters, none of whom were offering resistance, casually spraying them with mace was unjustifiable, bordering on the criminal. 

There will be an investigation. My guess is that the official French verdict will be that the police perhaps over-reacted at times but that the blame for what happened lies squarely with Liverpool’s “hooligan” fans. UEFA may come up with something different. We will see.

In fairness to the French media, it is worth noting that Monday’s papers have questioned the official version of events. Le Parisien ran a picture prominently on its front page of a frightened little boy pressed up against metal railings as his parents sought to shield him from tear gas directed at them for no discernible reason. Le Monde was clear in its report that Liverpool fans were the victims, not the perpetrators of what took place.  

It may also be significant that Oudea-Castera belatedly admitted this morning that much of the confusion that gripped the Stade de France in the immediate run-up to the Champions League final was caused by gangs from the surrounding Saint-Denis area of the city, the majority of whom are Muslim, of North African origin. If that is so, then France’s unresolved problems with its banlieues could yet cast a shadow over the 2024 Olympic Games, for which the national stadium, rather than a specially constructed venue, is to be the centrepiece.